By BERNIE BELLAN We often get asked to publish stories about individuals who would like to publicize either an activity or a business in which they’re involved.

It’s not always easy deciding who deserves to have their story told, especially since this paper has a very small-town feel to it, where almost anyone who reads it should be able to recognize many of the names of other Winnipeggers who are mentioned in the paper.I have known Hadass Eviatar for a couple of years now. Interestingly enough, the first time I met her was at a social Meet-up gathering at the Viscount Gort when I went there to mix with other individuals who were interested in social media. Hadass immediately impressed me with her intimate knowledge of social media, but it was only more recently that I learned how accomplished she is in so many other fields.For instance, I noted in our pre-Rosh Hashanah issue that Hadass was serving as the “baal kriah” (Torah reader) at the Etz Chayim during the high holidays. As it turns out, that particular role is something Hadass has grown into these past two years as she gradually assumed more and more of the duties of baal kriah at that synagogue from its long-time Torah reader, Leon Berger.Interestingly, Hadass tells me that she did not grow up in a religious home. While Hadass and her husband David Hoult are now both Shabbat observant, as are their three children – Rafi, 19; Ari, 16, and Shira, 13, she does say that her own upbringing in Israel was as a non-observant Jew. She explains that she and David arrived in Winnipeg (in 1994), “just about the time that the Rosh Pina was going egalitarian. There was no reason for me (before having come to Winnipeg) to go (to a synagogue) somewhere where I wasn’t comfortable – and where I wasn’t wanted. I’m a native Hebrew speaker but I didn’t learn synagogue skills until I came somewhere where I wasn’t stuck up in a balcony.”Hadass adds that her “dad is a pillar of the Reform congregation of Netanya.” (Her mother died some years ago, she explains. Hadass’s son, Rafi Hoult, (who has written for this paper himself and who has also achieved quite a high level of recognition within our community in his own right) has been a counselor at Camp Massad the past three years and, during that period he’s also attended the Beach Synagogue on a weekly basis, where Laurie Mainster has had him conduct Musaf services. Currently Rafi is enrolled at the University of Winnipeg, where he is in second year, majoring in physics, while Ari is in Grade 11 and Shira is in Grade 8, both at the Gray Academy.As I listened to Hadass telling me more about her very interesting life story, I was even more intrigued to find out how much she’s taken different career paths every so often.

Hadass was born in Israel in 1962, she says, and grew up partly in Israel and partly in the U.S. Her father was originally from Duluth, Minnesota, while here mother was a sabra born in Jerusalem.After completing her two years in the Israeli army, Hadass went to the Netherlands to attend university – in Amsterdam and Utrecht - where she obtained her PhD in molecular bio-physics, in 1994.Hadass says that she met her husband, David Hoult, (who is from England) at a physics conference in Israel. (Interestingly, at the time, she was living in the Netherlands, so when she went to that conference in Israel, it was as a visitor to that country.)Hadass and David lived in Netherlands for three years, then came to Winnipeg in 1994, when David began working for the National Research Council in the field of bio-diagnostics. (David Hoult played a key role in the development of IMRIS technology, which helped to produce portable MRI devices..) Hadass also worked for then NRC until Rafi was born in 1996, then again after some time off until 2001. As well, she’s been a high school teacher, but it’s her two most recent forays into more eclectic fields that she wanted to talk about when I sat down with her recently.Within the past two years Hadass has become both a “life coach” and a marketer of nutritional products produced by an American company known as Isagenix.

How Hadass became involved with becoming a life coach is especially intriguing. In describing her own upbringing, she explains that members of her family divided along two lines: psychotherapists and physicists. “Sometimes you can fight all your life against something that you’re supposed to be doing but it just catches up with you. My mother was a psychotherapist, my sister’s a psychotherapist, my grandmother was a social worker – working with people is what we do,” Hadass says.“But, I tried to go the other way in my family,” she explains. “My family consists of therapists and physicists and I went to the physicist side. It was a lot of fun but it wasn’t the right thing for me. It wasn’t enough ‘people work’. “I’m not a psychotherapist,” she notes. “I didn’t want to go back and do a psychology degree, but I did become a life coach. The beautiful thing about being a life coach is you get to ask people questions and you help them to reflect on the answers that they give themselves.“You’ve got two kinds of people who help people,” Hadass says.. “You’ve got consultants who tell people what to do and you have coaches, who ask people questions.“I actually got into life coaching through the wellness company that I work with, “ she explains. “I trained online with a woman in California named Brooke Castillo, who’s got a school called ‘The Life Coach School’, where I learned how to ask and how to listen and how to help people just separate what is actual fact in their life and what they think is fact in their lives based on the stories they’ve been telling themselves.“The large majority of it is right between your ears, depending on the story you tell yourself about the circumstance. Someone else could tell a completely different story about the same circumstance, so which one would be true?” Hadass notes. “The large majority of it is right between your ears, because what story do you tell about the circumstance because someone else could tell a different story.“There are a lot of different kinds of life coaches because anyone can hang up a shingle and say they’re a life coach, “ Hadass notes, “but the kind of life coaching that I do is to help people ask people the questions and understand their own thoughts. “The basis of what I’m doing is that the choices you make in your life are based on the thoughts that you have about things, “ she says. “People have much more control over their lives than they think they do. A life coach helps you to hold up a mirror to your life and understand what you’re thinking.“The ideal person who’d want to come to see me would be someone who’d say: ‘I’m not comfortable with where I’m at. Is this all there is?’I asked Hadass whether she was referring to someone’s situation vis-à-vis their career only, or could it also be referring to relationships?She answered: “It could be relationships too, but right now I’m focusing on helping people with career choices – and dealing mostly with women,” (although she does say that she also has a couple of male clients right now as well.)“The thing is I’m not going to tell you what to do,” she insists. “I’m going to ask you to think about the choices that you’ve made and the stories that you tell yourself.Most things in life are optional.“You could be in a job that you don’t particularly care for, but you could be so amazingly wonderful in that job that opportunities open up for you – and that is your choice.”

Hadass explains that her initial contact with a client is to do a “15 minute mini-session, which would be free of charge. It would be a chance for us to get to know each other and see whether seeing me would be a fit, also to give them some idea what my coaching is like.“If we’re a good fit, we’d probably start with a six-hour series and, after those six hours, take it from there.”Hadass explains that she’s been preparing to be a life coach for two years now, but received her actual certification in July.Most of her clients have found her online. What makes her happy is communicating with people. “I first went on Twitter in 2008. I spend most of my time on Facebook, but I’m also on Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram,” she adds. (See my earlier reference to Hadass’s prowess as a social media maven.)

As I also noted earlier, Hadass has also become involved with an Arizona-based company that produces nutritional products, known as Isagenix .“I’d heard about it (Isagenix) years ago,” Hadass explains, “but I was very resistant (to trying its products). “I literally own a t-shirt that says ‘Just eat real food’. So, I was eating ‘real food’, but I was malnourished.”“I went to a trade show and I saw a friend there who was handing out samples (of Isagenix), so I tried it for the first time, and I remember drinking it and I’m going like: ‘Wow, this feels good,’ but I was still very resistant.“It’s whey powder and you just mix it with water. It’s a meal replacement and it’s very filling. “Iasegnix, she explains, offers much more than meal replacements, according to Hadass. “iI’s a complete nutritional support system, including supported intermittent fasting (also called nutritional cleansing)”, she says.Hadass has been taking the product herself since June 2014 and has been doing marketing of the product since November of last year.There are also snacks in the program, Hadass notes, in addition to the meal replacement powder. But, Hadass says, you would still be having one regular meal a day. So, if losing weight was your goal, you’d have something like “two shakes, two snacks, and a meal,” she advises.On the other hand, if you wanted to put on muscle in the gym, you’d use a higher protein version of the shakes, Hadass adds.“One of our goals is to maintain our health and vitality and endurance as we age.”Nutritional supplements are very popular with many consumers, but Hadass cautions that entering into a program without proper advice can be very dangerous. “If you wanted to do this (the Isagenix program) you would sign up through my website and I’d coach you how to use this product,” she says.If you are interested in finding out more about either Hadass Eviatar’s life coaching or her marketing of Isagenix products, you can refer to either of her two websites:hadasseviatarcoaching.com or hadasseviatar.com. Hadass can be reached via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at 204-792-3996.